Greta isn’t in my class for maths, but I hope that I can find her when we break for lunch and then we can spend the free afternoon together. I try and rush out to catch her, but my teacher, Miss Jansky, stops me. ‘I’m sorry, Elsa,’ she says, placing her hand on my arm.

‘Sorry? What for, miss?’ I ask.

She doesn’t reply. She just shakes her head. Then she squeezes my arm and gives me a sad kind of smile. I’m starting to feel a bit uncomfortable and I’m not sure how to respond.

‘You coming?’ Frida, one of my classmates, is waiting at the door.

‘Go on,’ Miss Jansky says. ‘Take care, Elsa.’

I’m relieved to get away from the awkward moment.

‘Some of us are going into the city after school,’ Frida says to me. ‘See what’s going on with Hitler’s army! Want to join us?’

I think about what Mutti and Vati have said to me recently. They don’t like me going anywhere without telling them where I’ll be. They’ve started being all protective again, like they were in Vienna before we left. And Hitler was the man Vati went to fight! I don’t want anything to do with him! Just his name scares me. But I don’t want to say any of this to the girls and sound like a baby.

After Vati came home from the army last year, we thought things were going to be great. We thought all our troubles were over. But things have been tough lately. Vati’s work has dropped off. No one seems to be offering him contracts and Mutti’s been quieter again. They haven’t talked about any of it with me and Otto, but I still feel it. There’s something different in the air.

I’ve got a tiny voice inside me wondering if maybe our troubles haven’t even begun.

But I know I can’t say any of this to the others. Luckily, Greta is beside me before I can reply to Frida.

‘We’ve got plans,’ she says quickly. ‘We’ll see you tomorrow.’

The other girls shrug and move off without us.

‘Do we have plans?’ I ask Greta as the girls walk away.

‘No, of course not,’ she replies.

‘Why did you say we did?’ I insist, even though I’m grateful that she did.

‘Because it’s dangerous in the city,’ she says.

‘Dangerous?’ I ask. I can’t stop myself. Every nerve ending in my body jangles with tension and I know I shouldn’t push it. I don’t want to say it out loud. I don’t want Greta to say it either. But if I don’t, I’m scared the tension inside me will burst out and break me into pieces.